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skin weathered and dark, her gray hair, what was left of it, scraped tightly to her head in a thin twist. But even her stooped posture couldn’t disguise the energy that fairly vibrated from her.
    She held a large, shirt-sized box that she lifted slightly as Cali entered the empty front room.
    “This came for you,
chérie
. In today’s mail.”

THREE
    “Finally! I wondered when it would get here.”
    John snagged her arm before she could open the door. He tugged her back. “I thought you said no one knew you were here?” His fierce whisper was hot in her ear.
    Cali frowned at him. “Hush, I’ll explain later. I don’t want Eudora in this. The woman doesn’t miss a trick.”
    “She owned this place when you were here with Nathan. Surely you’ve questioned her.”
    “Yes,” she all but hissed under breath. “But there are ways to do it that don’t involve a single, bare lightbulb and bamboo shoots.”
    “I’ve never used bamboo shoots.”
    She stilled, then shot him an approving look. “I didn’t think you were capable.”
    He lifted a brow. “Of torture?”
    She smiled dryly. “Of humor. I know firsthandabout your ability to torture.” She patted him on the arm. “You don’t need anything as crude as bamboo.”
    She eased her arm from his grip and turned back to Eudora. The old woman’s attention was focused intently on both of them. “I’m sorry, let me introduce you.” Opening the door, she relieved her landlady of her burden. “Eudora, this is an old acquaintance, John McShane. John, this is Eudora Magdelane. She was kind enough to open this place back up for me.”
    Eudora squinted, adding wrinkles to a face Cali had thought already filled to capacity. Sharp black eyes scanned John from head to toe and back before she finally extended a hand.
    Cali watched in amused silence as John stepped closer and took the gnarled, tanned fingers in his own much larger hand. Her mouth dropped open in shock when he smiled and lifted Eudora’s hand to his mouth, dropping a polite kiss before tucking her hand in his.
    “My pleasure, mademoiselle,” he said smoothly.
    Cali’s gaze drifted from John to Eudora. She was beaming as if courted by a royal suitor. John McShane, charming? Cali shook her head. It must be the heat.
    She turned and walked back to the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with your flowers.”
    “Oh, take your time,
chérie
,” the old woman trilled. Eudora never trilled. “I’m in no hurry.”
    “I’ll bet you aren’t,” Cali muttered. She sat the package on the table, wondering how rude it would be just to open it now. Not that they’d notice, shethought, listening to Eudora’s uncharacteristic chatter and John’s attentive responses. But the contents were too important to risk being seen by anyone but her or John.
    She was surprised Eudora had taken it upon herself to deliver the package. Probably hoping to discover what was inside, Cali thought. The old snoop.
    She slid the poinsettias from the vase and carefully wrapped the stems in a wet towel, then plastic bagged them, before returning to the front room. Eudora and John were still standing just inside the door.
    Cali had been on Martinique for almost two weeks. In that time she’d engaged Eudora in conversation any number of times. If you could call their brief exchanges that. She’d discovered Eudora could rival the sneakiest interrogator when she wanted to know something, but was notoriously closemouthed when the tables were turned.
    When Cali had first arrived, she’d been relieved to find the cottage still standing, though obviously unoccupied for some time. Ten years earlier, Nathan had rented the cottage from Eudora’s son, Adrian. But at some point during the interim, he had left the property in his mother’s inimitable care. Eudora was every bit as shrewd as her son. Cali had thought to play on the woman’s sympathies by concocting a sad story about revisiting the site of her honeymoon ten years after the